School patronage

Flinty997 wrote: »

Pretty much are.

So you need to look for evidence not based an anecdotal stories. Well if the curriculum and materials are saturated with religious indoctrination that would be easy to substantiate. You'd could look through a child schoolwork and school books.

In some of the other threads people could point to a staff membership in religious groups or boards of management being dominated by members of such organisations. There you have clear links. We also have the issue around hospital ownership at the moment.

Ultimately if religious indoctrination was as widespread as is claimed here. RC wouldn't be evaporating from society as it is. You wouldn't need nut analogies either.

Just over 90% of primary schools and 50% of secondary schools are under the patronage of the Roman Catholic Church - fact.
These schools are obliged to implement the ethos of the Roman Catholic Church - fact.

How exactly do you think these schools fulfill this obligation?

Flinty997 wrote: »

Whatever their obligations. The fact the vast majority leaving the school system have no involvement, engagement or association with religion. Implies they are either very bad at teaching it. Or just not doing it.

That's not too say that patronage should be ignored. Religion should be detached from education. Definitely.

Sweetest divine (pardon the pun)

The vast majority of schools are under an obligation to act/teach according to the ethos of the Roman Catholic Church.

The extent to which they do so is decided by the Principle and board of management but they ALL have to fulfil that obligation.

How many of them 'do' Communion? Yup. All of them.
What has Communion got to do with their education?
Absolutely nothing.

Confirmation - yup, that too.

Baby Jesus Xmas play?
School prayers?
Visiting clergy?
Scheduled time set aside for the teaching of religion - and no, it is not comparative studies - it is the Romans Catholic Church is the one true faith. They cannot teach otherwise as that is the ethos.

You are looking for proof that such things take place and then make a statement like "the vast majority leaving the school system have no involvement, engagement or association with religion" without any proof.

The census returns say you are incorrect - the majority still tick the RCC box. I would call that an 'involvement'.

In 2016 the proportion of Roman Catholics increased steadily from 75.5 per cent for those aged less than one, to 83.5 per cent for 11 year olds. It then falls with increasing age to reach a low of 60.5 per cent for 27 year olds before steadily rising to reach a peak for 82 year olds at 91.9 per cent.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p8iter/p8rrc/

Flinty997 wrote: »

Last time the pope rocked up for mass 1.3 million turned up. This time 130k.

Ticking boxes on a census isn't involvement.

Yes.
It is.

It is also what informs planning decisions.
If people are not involved why tick the I am involved box when there is an I am not involved box available?
Answer : Because they were 'raised Catholic' - and the majority of the instruction took place in school.

You were looking for proof of other's statements and quibbled when you didn't get it.
You then made an unsupported statement and when proof is supplied showing you are incorrect you are quibbling with the proof.

You are coming across as not exactly consistent.

Flinty997 wrote: »

Research and networking.

I think a better question is how do others manage to find schools with such high religious involvement. Considering it's completely at odds with trends in society in general. Are there incentives for teachers and headmasters to promote religion.

There is very little promotion in the teaching profession, so to get on the next step AP2 (assistant principal) or AP1 you have to interview. In many schools it's not uncommon to be asked how you promote the ethos.

Principal job its Par for the course
https://stannesschool.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CEIST-Principal-Application-Form-St.-annes-Secondary-School-Tipperary-Town.docx&ved=2ahUKEwjGsM7C6LnxAhX3ShUIHdxFCkcQFjAEegQIGhAC&usg=AOvVaw3OIcMawaEuBAyCx-AIaAHN

Flinty997 wrote: »

Thanks for that. Hardly hiding it under a bushel though are they. Even the crest is religious.

But in researching this, I found this interesting case...

https://atheist.ie/2017/09/tipperary-etb-christian-ethos/

That's par for the course for AP/deputy/principal interviews for schools in the CEIST or Le Cheile trusteeship, which is nearly 200 schools in Ireland. So sorry guess it would be nearly 2,000+ teachers.
They're the 2 main ones I'm familiar with anyway. You'll have solo religious orders who aren't part of a trusteeship so I'd imagine they'll protect their ethos themselves too.

I didn't select that school for any particular reason btw, just a random search.

Flinty997 wrote: »

Well I found another job advert but it was an educate together : ) then I checked out our own school and there is almost zero mention of region on it. So I was thinking maybe it's ETBs but then came across that story which was interesting in a load of different ways.

Why did the computer science teacher bring the case to WRC, Was it because the school was going all out on Roman Catholic when the patron said it was Christian?

6 wrote: »

They are literally teaching something they think themselves think is make believe.

Nonetheless, they are teaching it, and religious ethos schools are exempt from employment equality law. And the new Fluorish RSE programme that is being introduced has a very strong fundamentalist catholic flavour to it.

The horse has bolted with the baptism barrier gone. Its slow moving, but communion and conformations will be eventually moved to out of hours, and become an opt-in part of a child's upbringing. Then watch communions and confirmations fall off a cliff.

Your last sentence is the reason the RCC will resist any change in religious instruction and sacramental preparation in schools as long as they possibly can.

Treppen wrote: »

Plus the whole charities network thing is a means to an end.
You'll recall where enda got tough and closed the Irish embassy in the Vatican. Probably wasn't long before they realised the global network they were cutting off , but anyway, back open again.... https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/holy-see/ambassador/

So big lie or not, you gotta know how your bread is buttered.

Don't really know what you mean here. What disadvantage or harm exactly did closing the Vatican embassy cause to the Irish state? We retained an ambassador to the Holy See during that time btw, they just resided in Dublin and flew over as required. But the idea of giving the status of a state to a church is entirely ridiculous and wrong as they have abused diplomatic privilege when it suited them, and used the Vatican as an extradition-free place where abuse suspects could hide.

Flinty997 wrote: »

Well you have to ask why are they demolishing large churches and selling them off for apartments if there is large regular involvement in religion.

I am aware of one RC church in the entire country which is being demolished, and it's going to be replaced albeit with a much smaller one. Cappagh Road, Finglas West. That hangar-like monstrosity was a monument to Archbishop McQuaid's ego - what is it with authoritarian males and needlessly massive buildings, anyway?

The church has pretty admitted that attendance at communion and similar events are mostly treated as one day events, and religion takes a backseat even with these.

Nonetheless pupils are made to spend many many hours in school preparing for these events, time when they should be learning.

Realizing this, they've counted with the "Flourish" programme which is so out of touch with society its laughable.

It is, but it's not a religious instruction syllabus, it's relationships and sexuality education.

We need to legislate that children receive evidence based RSE, whether they're in a religious ethos school or not.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Try counting the number with enough involvement to show up for Mass on the average Sunday morning, and you won't be dealing with a majority.

Aye but they govt. will take their cue from the CSO rather than doing tallys outside churches.

Hence the whole "we must offer choice" and "parents have a choice to go elsewhere" fairytale.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Sadly infrastructure and funding is not decided by having someone stand outside churches on a Sunday morning - or even Saturday night which I have observed seems to be the big going to Mass day - with a clicky counter. It's decided by the compulsory questionnaire sent out to every household every 5 years.
And on that questionnaire it asks what religion (if any) people are - I don't recall it asking how observant any one is.

Personally I think if a system similar to Germany where those who profess to have a religion are obliged to pay a "support your religion tax" we'd soon see far less ticking of I'm a Roman Catholic box on the census.

But for now we have people educated in Catholic ethos State funded schools (many of which required baptism until very recently), growing up to tick the I am a Catholic box even though they are not only non-observant, they continually break the tenets of their professed religion. And this means in the box ticking exercise the majority are 'Roman Catholic' and that is what the bean counters go on.

Amazingly enough, school patronage decisions are much more influenced by consulting parents of school age children about what kind of school they want than by either census results or mass attendance surveys. That is, after all, the relevant data.

As for the church tax, far, far more Germans tick the box and pay the church tax (61%) than actually go to church every Sunday (estimated 5-6%). And I think this is broadly true in most or all countries which have a similar church tax. People who choose church attendance as a proxy for genuine religious affiliation usually do so because church attendance is low and this give them the result they want. Having a second objective measure of affiliation might not yield the result they want.

Which underlines the point already made - you can't project whether people will want to send their children to church schools based on whether they attend church or not, or what box they tick on the census form, or even whether they pay a church tax. You have to ask them what kind of schools they want to send their children to.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

However when the prevailing system has for generations created a link between education and religion people who have come through that system are preconditioned to think there isn't an alternative. They vote to keep the status quo.

We saw something similar during the MarRef campaign. It was frankly shocking how many people believed that to be a) legally married it had to happen in a Church and b) could not comprehend that the religious aspect of the marriage ceremony has zero legal standing - that the marriage occurred in the vestry with the priest acting as a Registrar. In this instance people did not vote to keep the status quo - but an awful lot of energy was spent explaining to people that the church part is not required.
We need to explain to people that in education the religion part is not required - but it's difficult to do that when the majority are educated in a system that intertwines the two.

Actually, this isn't correct. The legal part of a marriage is when the couple exchange vows in the presence of witnesses and before the celebrant. This is true for church marriages, civil marriages and registry office marriages. The signing of paperwork afterwards is no more the marriage, legally speaking, than registering a birth is a birth, or registering a death is a death.

But the wider point here, of course, is that there's a great gap between "people don't want church schools" and "people who want church schools should have their wishes disregarded, because they are too brainwashed to make the decision that they would make if they were as enlightened as me". I don't think the second is really a vote-winner, and you have, ahem, a low chance of persuading the Dept of Education to make the patronage decisions you want them to make by advancing that argument. If you think parents are expressing the wrong patronage preference, you have much more chance of persuading them to express the preference you want than of persuading the Department to ignore the preference they do express.

Fewer than half of all marriages in Ireland now take place in a church (any kind of church not just RC).

Our education system is, literally, decades behind our society and that's just not good enough.

As for consultation with parents, it's almost always conspicuous by its complete absence. In relation to the (few) proposed divestments, it's invariably only parents who already have kids enrolled locally who are consulted and the process is a largely pointless exercise in FUD and inertia. Those forced to send their kids out of the area are excluded twice over. Those who will be seeking schools for their kids in the near future are not considered at all.

But in my area, Dept of Education did a de Valera and decided it knew best. The two large single-sex RC schools got extended, and there remains no ET (or even a blasted CNS) in the area. There was no consultation whatsoever.

What was that you were saying about expressing patronage preferences? :rolleyes:

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

...
But in my area, .... there remains no ET ... in the area. There was no consultation whatsoever....:

I moved to an area where I knew I was in the catchment for certain schools. Theres a good few ETs within easy distance if I wanted that. I have a vague recollection of a few surveys from the dept about patronage over the years. I found an example of one here, just at random.

https://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2019-press-releases/PR19-09-09.html

Unless of course you move, or travel out of your local area to get the school you want.

Which lots of people do.

What do you mean by acceptable? Its a bit vague.

If I move to somewhere, with no schools. Is it acceptable that I have to travel to somewhere where there are schools. How would that be different?

The OP was discussing a survey where parents would be able to vote on a change of patronage. Some where unhappy as they feel minorities would be outvoted.

10% is around 300 schools that are "acceptable".

That's a lot of schools to reject before you have to choose one of the unacceptable ones.

Working off 10% that was given, thats 300 schools, you have 4~5 yrs of advance notice of both the Kids needing to go to school, and the admission policies of schools. Its normal (especially in Dublin, and for that matter around the world) that huge numbers of kids go to school outside their local areas. Half the traffic is school kids travelling all over this place. Even outside of Dublin its still a small county. There a load of schools within a reasonable commute of most people.

So the argument there's nothing local, especially in Dublin, is pretty feeble argument.

I know a bunch of parents with kids in ETs. None are local to them. It might be hard, but its not impossible as is being painted here.

You said 90% of them were unacceptable. I assumed that left 10% that were acceptable.

I guess we are shifting the goal posts down to 3%. But no its less that.

You also ruled out schools you aren't currently in the catchment of. if I did that it would rule out almost all but one the schools around me. For example it would rule out the school 10 mins walk from where I live. So my choice would be limited to 1 school out of 3000. Which wouldn't be true but its a good way to spin it.

In fact of the 9 or 10 schools, either I or mine have attended. It would rule out all but two of them.

When I mentioned 90% I was talking specifically about catholic schools. But most of the remaining 10% are also religious schools (Church of Ireland) and indoctrinate kids during the school day.

Whether you or I like it or not it's a fact that only about 3% of primary schools in this country, ETs, don't discriminate against kids on the basis of religion.

Also I am not the one excluding my kids from schools outside the catchment area, it's the massive oversubcription for ETs and the admission policies which (rightly) prioritise kids from the local area which do that.

Every child should be able to enrol in their local school and be treated fairly and equally same as everyone else. That only 3% of primary schools do this is a disgrace.

We are told you can't get into the ET not in your area. because you're not in the catchment and they are oversubscribed.

But until recently the ones I've direct experience of didn't have catchments. It was simply first come first served. So if you didn't get place you were simply late getting on the list. Since they polled far and wide when they were being planned, lots of people put their names on the lists very early. I don't see how one can be unaware a ET is being built, or is their area.

But if you can't, you can't. Good luck with the campaign.

You might enlighten us with just how many ETs you have "direct experience" of and what this entailed?